Rorschach Test Manufacturer Accidentally Ships Inkblots That Actually Look Like Something

A manufacturing error at the Hogrefe & Huber printing facility has produced a batch of Rorschach inkblot cards in which the ostensibly ambiguous images are, according to clinicians who received them, 'not ambiguous in the slightest.'

'Card I is a butterfly,' said clinical psychologist Dr. Sandra Projective, holding up the card. 'Not in a it-sort-of-looks-like-a-butterfly way. It's a monarch butterfly. You can see the wing pattern. Every patient I showed it to said butterfly. That's not projection. That's recognition.'

The defective batch, which was distributed to approximately 300 clinics nationwide, features inkblots that have been described as depicting, with varying degrees of specificity: a butterfly (Card I), a teddy bear (Card II), two people high-fiving (Card III), a boot (Card IV), a moth (Card V), an alligator (Card VI), a pelican (Card VII), two crabs (Card VIII), a chandelier (Card IX), and 'the Eiffel Tower, clearly and unambiguously' (Card X).

'The whole point of the Rorschach is that the images don't look like anything,' said Dr. Projective. 'The patient's interpretation reveals their inner psychological landscape. When Card VII is obviously a pelican, the only thing revealed is that the patient has functional vision.'

Hogrefe & Huber has issued a recall, attributing the error to 'a calibration issue in the symmetry generation algorithm' that produced inkblots with 'an unintended degree of representational coherence.'

Several clinicians have reported that the defective cards produced unexpectedly useful therapeutic moments. 'One patient said Card I was a butterfly and then asked why I was showing him a picture of a butterfly,' said Dr. Projective. 'I said I couldn't tell him. He said that was suspicious. It was actually the most insight he's shown in two years of treatment.'